Niche Biz: Virtual Assassins

A man in China hired virtual “assassins” to hunt down his son in online video games and kill off his avatar, according to local media.

The man, named by the Kotako East blog as Mr Feng, was concerned about the amount of time his 23-year-old unemployed son was spending online.

He hoped his actions would deter his son from playing the games, he is reported to have said.

In the vast majority of online video games, when your character dies, he doesn’t die for good. After a 30 second time-out, the player is “respawned” (brought back to life). If virtual assassins know where the game respawns users, they can wait in ambush there and repeatedly kill the player just as he is reborn.